board. wiped out yesterday's losses but the financials still in the hole down 1.4% on the week this has been ground zero for the italian turmoil. we'll continue to watch the sector all right. thanks for watching "power lunch. >> "closing bell" starts right now. this is "the closing bell. i'm wilfred frost at the new york stock exchange. stocks bounce back after yesterday's big fall can this jump reignite confidence in a bull market? i'm steve leisman at cnbc global headquarters. big news from the fed on several fronts today we're asking the question, when it comes to interest rates, is it one and done for the fed for the rest of the year in seattle, i'm aditi roy. jeff bezos addressing shareholders at the company's annual conference. one hot topic? splitting chairman and ceo roles. i'm leslie picker. how corporations are taking extra steps in the me too era to

root out sexual harassment in the ranks. and i'm kelly evans. those stories plus bill gross' horrible one-day loss -- >> that's first question answered second question, if you're able to buy time warner, you're going to end up working with the ro roseanne barrs of the world. talent that is popular and may make you a lot of money and cause all kinds of headaches for you in a way you haven't had to deal with as the guy running the phone company. in the -- you first proposed this deal, what? a year and a half ago? >> yes about 18 months. >> i bet you had many thoughts about it how are you thinking of talent like this where these people are going to cost you post enormous profit and potential headaches >> i've got to -- this is the issue you probably spend more cycles on than anything else and actually, it goes both ways. but how do you protect the creative culture and a creative culture that may

or may not be flattering to the parent company or people on the other side of the equation that are part of the same ownership structure. i think it's going to require a disciplined managerial approach. it's going to be -- i've spent a lot of time with jeff bewkes and he spent time counseling me and educating me on this i take it to heart that is, look, you're going to have to let these people go. you'll have some guardrails but those guardrails are pretty wide >> fire them or let them do what they want? >> let them do what's in the best interest of the time warner entity and at the end of the day, you're acquiring a business that has been very successful it's been run very independently. hbo is run independently from warner brothers which is run independently from turner. it's been a very good model. there are some things we need to do to drive value into the combined businesses as you think about advertising models and what whatnot. but you have to be disciplined to let them do what they do

best >> eventually you'll have a roseanne barr issue that creates a kind of problem and it can bubble up to whoever is your jeff bewkes. is it going to come up to you? are you going let someone below you make that decision >> it would be a rare situation that it would bubble up to me. bob iger engaging on the roseanne barr situation, that's a no brainer, right? he dealt with that and he dealt with it quickly. tough admire how he did it but those are the kind of things you can see escalating although one must question if that needs to go to ceo of disney to make that decision. >> would you have fired roseanne barr >> i can't imagine how you would not. >> thank you for the direct response to that question. that's nice. we like that let's talk about the deal that you want to get done proposed the fall of 2016. since you've announced that deal, we've seen lots of moving around in the media landscape, lots of potential deals. we had james murdoch up here

talking about disney and fox it seems like your deal has now triggered either lots of specific deals or a lot of deals to be made did you expect that was going to happen that once you said we're buying time warner, that would trigger other things >> i don't know it triggered off all these things or we got in front of things that were inevident pbl. you're seeing a lot of things play out that are following a set kind of formula. that is nobody really knows what the future is going to look like five, six years from now but i think the bet most people are making is premium content is going to be very, very relevant five or six years from now a lot of band width is going to be required to make all of that happen and there are going to be new kind of business models surrounding this particularly as it results to ad-driven type models so this whole vertical integration of distribution all the way through media, everybody's headed down the same

path i would tell you i even believe the t-moblie/sprint deal is following the same path. people are recognizing this is going to need an amazing amount of band width to do this sprint and t-moblie are saying can we invest at a pace fast enough to keep up with this. so all of this v vodafone, liberty, global, comcast with sky, all of this is following the psalm pattern. >> seems to me that owns pipes is a great business. you have direct connection to the consumer direct billing connection to the consumer very high margin in a lot of cases. media business seems kind of fraught in a lot of ways it seems if you own the pipes, you don't need to own the content because the content is coming through you whether or not you own it which is another way of me asking, i still don't understand why you did this deal. you owning time warner assets like hbo, turner, all those companies still have to deal

with the comcasts and the spectrums of the world but they get an advantage. >> that's the question you're hitting a third rail. you're needing all this band width and premium media. one of the key variables of this is a direct relationship with the customer and a lot of the media companies do not have that direct relationship with the customer there are some who do. and they're doing quite well netflix has a great relationship with the customer. they're a fully integrated media relationship with the customer amazon is doing the same thing bob iger obviously has high ambitions to establishing a very direct relationship with the customer so if you can bring 130 million mobile customers where you have a direct billing relationship day-to-day customer relationship, band width as well as content and put all that together, then you have vertically integrated the same way as some of these other guys have >> if you have that direct relationship, the media stuff you're going to integrate.

right? again, the value of hbo goes away or is severely diminished if it's not also available to comcast spectrum and everybody else this is the court case, right? so what is the advantage you get from owning it opposed to just having an arm's length relationship like everybody else >> so think about what's coming together here. turner specifically, start there, has an amazing inventory of advertising that they sell broadly. it's not a targeted advertising approach at&t has an amazing amount of data, customer data for 40 million paid tv subscribers in north and south america. 130 million mobile subscribers, 16 million broad band subscribers. we have really great customer insight on what kind of shows, media, content they're viewing where they are all kinds of information on the consumer

can you pair a formidable ad inventory with a formidable amount of data and create something unique just from a straight advertising platform and change how you're monetizing content? we believe there's a strong opportunity to do this we do this on a small scale today. basically a turner every hour they have 16 minutes of advertising inventory. two of it go to the distributor comcast or whoever with just our two minutes where we use the data i'm talking about, we monetize the advertising at three to five times what is done on just a traditional tnt, tbs and so forth. can you begin to move those numbers to look more like what we do in the directv content by virtue of using the data >> those two or three minutes

you get from tun rner you still get that from espn i don't understand why owning one asset and not owning the other, what advantage you're going to get >> all of that inventory in directv, roughly 200 billion impressions a year turner 750 billion impressions a year can you make the 750 from a yieldstandpoint look like the 200? if you can, that's a sizable benefit. it's a sizable benefit not just terms of new revenue and margins. but can you begin to change the content equation i find the traditional tv experience less than fulfilling because of the advertising load. if you can begin to drive yields up, can you take advertising loads down and can you change the viewer experience for some of this content? we believe you can >> jeff bewkes is pretty good at running a media company. these guys were building these big companies are selling media companies. people like you.

doesn't that give you pause that you're on the wrong side of the table? i asked james the same question. >> look. the model has to change. if you're going to keep running the same play, it's not an exciting business. if you can reassemble the assets in a way that could allow you to change the model can you change the advertising model? can you change house advertising is distributed 130 million mobile subscribers and you own premium content. how can you begin to experiment and innovate around the content differently to distribute to 130 million mobile subscribers we think there's some opportunities to really innovate in media and entertainment around that as well. jeff bewkes would tell you the same thing >> last big deal you did was 2015 >> 2015. >> and you said basicay athe time we bought a declining asset. is the rate of decline accelerated for directv in terms

of subscribers >> it's been interesting so we got it kind of late in '15. 2016 it followed the path that we pretty much expected it would follow 2015, it w 2017, it was like a step shift it dropped down and did this it's now on the same trajectory, but took a step down in '17 that was more than expected as we look over the last couple of quarters, it's a similar trend. but there was a step shift >> what did that -- what did that signal to you >> we've asked ourselves that question a lot we know where the traffic went and what demographic it was. it wouldn't surprise anybody in this room. >> spell it out. >> it's millennials. it's people who tend to live in apartment complexes. you can get very specific about who the people were that did the aggressive cord cutting in 2017. it was all the people who you knew would >> young people who were paying you for satellite tv stopped

paying you for that. >> correct >> and the satellite guys got hurt more than the traditional cable guys >> for a few quarters. >> did you see that coming >> you know what we did when we bought directv we said we were not in love with the satellite business we wanted to innovate in delivering the content specifically moving over the top. getting mobile rights so we could begin distributing that to our mobile subscribers >> so you're buying customers. >> and content relationships we bought directv. now we have a product directv now. purely designed for the mobile environment. we have a million and a half subscribers on that platform in a year and we added another 300,000 last quarter what you see is our paid tv business 25 million subs has been very steady >> that's what you wanted.

right? we're going to replace the satellite customers with the online customers >> we're at 25 million subscribers today. but a significant amount of these are in over the top platforms. >> do you make money from the online customers >> today, no standing up the advertising platform is a key element to this plus, we really pushed hard to get this platform out there. we just put out a new version of the platform just two weeks ago. with the full dvr capabilities and incredible amounts of stack content and so forth we're moving that price to more market based so you get to a place where you next year, year and a halfthe i'm not worried about that i love the idea that you're keeping a very stable and i believe over time a growing customer base, but it shifts it shifts to more streamed over the top capabilities and the ability to monetize advertising on those platforms is exponentially greater than the traditional linear tv platforms.

>> you don't know the media business, but you bought a bunch of people who do you don't really have any background in advertising. you're starting to import some people there as a manager, someone who has not touched these businesses for years, how do you think about what you have to learn -- how much you have to learn to be able to accurately assess the job they're doing. or you have to listen to smart people >> well, at&t is a big company we have a lot of different areas that i don't know explicit details of many areas. >> but you're a lifer, right >> what's that >> you know a lot about the core business >> but it's all about the people you hire to run these businesses and time warner has some amazing people that run those businesses who running hbo and who runs warner brothers. these are really good people they've been in this industry a long time and they're going to be very critical to the success of this business as we go forward. on the advertising side to your point, no, we're not advertising experts.

we went out and hired brian less er from wpp. had a lot of success doing it. he's already built a significant team around himself. we have put all of the big data capability under brian and he is blown away by what data is available and how it's organized and ready to be put to work and so we're building a terrific team i feel really good about the team coming together to run this >> your competitors at verizon looks like they've looked at the same map as you. instead of buying tv now, they certainly looked at them we're going to buy online properties and spend a bunch of money there. why do you think they're going to direction >> the two models are not radically different. both are centered around owning content, significant content then using the dau ta from our distribution businesses to enhance the value of the content businesses they're going down a path of digital content.

we're going down a path of premium content. i'm a big believer in premium content. just had mary meeker in here i was going through her report on the way in this morning premium content consumption is not going down it's going up. and advertisers love the premium content platforms they just want it to be more targeted and more effective. so if you can build the capability for premium content to deliver for advertisers very targeted and specific audiences, we actually think there's a major opportunity there. the models aren't radically different. >> have you considered all the consumers now are being trained by netflix primarily but other on demand offerings with your predicating this on better more targeted advertising >> hbo is a product that's life without commercials. they do quite well in fact, they're growing their direct to consumer business very nicely so i don't -- >> but you've been talking for awhile now about the benefits of improved, targeting

advertisings >> it's an element that's one of the elements of it taking hbo direct to the consumer business to a different level i think could be a powerful opportunity as well there are a lot of opportunities. there's an amazing ip library within warner brothers how can you put that to work and create something special with the distribution business? so it's not a one-trick pony it's not all advertising hbo, i still believe, is one of the premium video assets in the business right now comparable to netflix. i'm anxious to kind of move the direct to consumer group >> it's looking like this is going to eventually be you and verizon and some combination of google, facebook, apple, amazon. sort of owning much of the media properties which means you're going to be competing directly against the googles and apples and facebooks and amazons of the world. how do you feel going toe-to-toe

with silicon valley? >> i believe if you don't create a pure vertical integrated capability from distribution all the way through content creation and advertising models, you're going to have a hard time competing with these guys. and i -- the statistic we throw out is since we announced this deal in november of 2016, the fang market caps have gone up over $1 trillion you better figure out how to vertically integrate here if you want to compete with those players. that's what this is about. building the capability to compete in the purely vertically graded opportunity >> what about in terms of hiring, getting best of -- really good engineers, other folks who might be inclined to work for a google, amazon, netflix. >> it's hyper competitive. if you want to work on -- if

you're a software engineer, google, apple , those are great opportunities. they're great brands if you want to go work on the first network being launched as the first -- this is a big, big deal at at&t we're leading the charge and our engineers are out front on this. if you want to work on things like that that are global in nature, that change how telecommunications is ne at&t's a great place if you want to work on projects that change how video and premium video is going to be distributed, at&t, we have hired a ton of people to work on our over the top product directv now. >> at pitch works. >> absolutely. here in l.a. we've got a done of them they're doing great work. >> did you see when we had john martin on stage in february and he complained about directv. did you talk to him about that

i can't remember the adjective he used. >> it wasn't flattering. no, i did not talk to john about that but no we're hiring great people. the advertising platform i told you brian lesser has made some great hires there. hiring great people has not proven to be a problem >> let's tiptoe into the recent events did you -- what was your reaction when you were actually sue bid the doj? what was that day like for you >> well, it wasn't a day we saw it coming and it was obvious that when mr. delrahim was confirmed by the senate, it was clear we were close to having a deal done. but that came to a halt. we saw this coming it wasn't like that day was a big wakeup >> there were people that said well, he's not actually going to sue them

>> not actually what >> he's not actually going to sue to stop it he's going to rattle a saber, try to extract some concession he's not actually going to take this thing to court. >> i think that was proven to be an incorrect assumption. >> like a plain spoken person. you were not shocked >> we saw it coming, yeah. and, look. you go into a transaction like this, you step into it you hope you never have to litigate it, but you step into it with the expectation you may have to litigate so you prepare. you prepare from the very beginning. you buy fire insurance for your house and hope you never have to use it if you do, you're glad you have it >> you know your way around washington and regulatory agencies how did the michael cohen thing happen how'd you end up paying michael cohen? >> you know, i don't have much to add other than the statement i put out that said what a big mistake. president trump came into office and nobody knew the guy and the

staff he was putting around him. so our folks in d.c. had this guy approach them about, well, this would be an interesting way to get some insight into the administration bad mistake. >> bad mistake because it looked bad or because you didn't get information, or both >> just a bad -- what degrees do you want to get into it was just a bad mistake. >> i mean, there is, by the way, a less awkwardly gross version of that that happens all the time whether through lawyers or varying -- you know this better than i do. you do pay people for information and maybe it's people -- maybe the light of day it looks more unpleasant >> bad mistake i don't know how else to say it. >> you're not going to hire roseanne barr or work with michael cohen again. >> it was a bad mistake. >> i asked you about this before but i don't think in public. you made a speech about black lives matter literally about the fact you had an african-american friend and until you had sort of talked

with him, you didn't realize the sort of day-to-day indignity and worse that he suffers. you made that in front of your own employees, when? 2016 >> yeah, that was fall of 2016 >> it wasn't -- you weren't streaming it live on the internet, but it was -- it ended up on youtube. it wasn't in a private forum. >> no. it was an employee setting and it was literally supposed to be a family conversation. right? and, you know, it's -- these things have cameras on them now. so literally i made the little talk -- it was i think 11, 12 minutes. >> it wasn't off the cuff. it was a speech you gave >> i'd put a lot of thought into the comments i really had i was very deliberate about what i wanted to say. look, it was a bad time. you remember what was going on ferguson, missouri, was going on the situation up in minnesota and louisiana. and dallas, i mean, two weeks before i gave this talk, you know, you had five police officers killed in dallas.

and so you just had all of this -- these activities going on and some amazing racial tension. and my view was that none of our political leaders were stepping up in a way that gave context to our people my employees were struggling with this. and i was feeling tension among my employee base i had the conversation with literally one of my best friends. and i just -- he gave me some context. it was like, wow i was embarrassed. he told me some things he had gone through as a kid growing up in louisiana the first child to go to an integrated school in louisiana you can imagine what he experienced. i said, man, you've just given me context i went and talked to me people about, look. i don't know where you are on this spectrum. you may think the police need to crack down or the police need to be brought under control i don't know where you are, but understand if you're an african-american how you view this and i gave them that perspective. and it was received very, very well by my employee base across

the whole spectrum of our company. i left there after this little 11-minute talk i got in the car and my smartphone was blowing up. an individual had already posted it on youtube and it went viral rather quickly i'm glad i did it. i'm actually pleased it went viral. it's a good message. >> what do people outside of the company tell you about that? do you get reaction outside the company? >> i got mixed as you can guess. i got some negative reaction but i can tell you it was literally 2% negative, 98% very, very positive and even thankful to a certain degree. >> have being been asking you to expand on that, to talk about that you said things were bad in 2016, they haven't gotten much better we got nazis marching in the street is there a reason you're not making more of those speeches. >> i don't -- i didn't make that speech to the general public i made it to my employees. i still talk to my employees at length about this topic. and there are a number of

activities and innovations within the company on how people are engaging with this topic what this did -- it wasn't that profound what i had to say it was not that profound >> in an ideal world, it would not be profound to say you should not discriminate against black people but that is considered controversial in parts of this world. >> the effect it had within at&t was it was a ceo gave every employee a license to get out and talk about this. go talk to that individual about what they're experiencing. go understand where they stand and so it initiated a number of conversations and even with my peers, other ceos on this topic and it was kind of like this big, ugly issue that everybody kept under a rug and nobody wanted to talk about it because it was awkward and uncomfortable and wasn't pleasant. all of a sudden people were talking about it and putting it out on the table and discussing it that could be nothing but helpful in my view

>> let's leave it there actually, let's ask if you have questions for randall. i'm sure you do. >> two quick questions for you first one is, if judge leon rules you can't buy time warner, what's plan "b"? >> i don't even want to go there. anything around the trial, just -- the judge has asked us to be cautious that answer might have implications to how people think about the deal so i just -- right now we're focused on winning this thing. that's where we are. i don't even want to go down that path. >> second one is you were not allowed to buy t-moblie. sprint and t-moblie now coming together do you think that deal should pass as is with no divesitures >> i don't want to say anything. people will read into it so we've got to let it go

i think they have a tough hill to climb it's a classic horizontal merger where you're taking a competitor out of the market place. but it is a very different marketplace today. and there are a number of competitors out there in this space and new competitors coming into it every day. it'll probably get a different review than our deal at t-moblie received power to them if they get it done >> hi. sid wilson for the hispanic association for responsibility in washington. let me say quickly -- >> randall steffensphe steven sn there feeling they got ahead of the curb a little bit subject to a doj decision. >> he also spent a good portion of that interview defending the rationale for the deal being reviewed by the department right

now going back to the split opinion on whether it should be investigated for review or not and he was asked about the roseanne barr controversy. what do you think about the reaction by disney ceo bob iger doing what he did. and he said i don't see how you could avoid doing that or why you would. let's bring in julia boorstin. she's got more on this for us. julia, some of the headlines from randall stephenson right now? >> it was interesting wias you mentioned how he explained the deal at the time he explained the deal he why it should be approved right now we're awaiting a ruling by the judge in that lawsuit between the doj and at&t in efforts to buy time warner. app lot of it came down to the growing power of the tech stocks he mentioned just how much value the tech stocks, the fang stocks have added since the deal was first announced to just give a sense of how big those giants

are. and he said this kind of consolidation was really the wave of the future and he talked about the kind of value they're going to be able to create by combining distribution and the data they get from distribution with that premium content. interesting to see how he paired the defense of the deal along with the justification for the value of the deal. >> julia, great stuff. thanks much for that right there. julia boorstin, of course, has been giving us great coverage from the recode conference >> he was also asked about at&t hiring michael cohen, president trump's lawyer, and said cohen approached us. we made a bad mistake and clearly didn't want to talk more about it here's where we stand on the markets. we closed down about 375 yesterday. we're making up a good bit of that today but the dow today interestingly enough is not leading the rebound. it's about even with the s&p up 1.2% and the small cap russell coming up 1.5% higher

>> and a reversal of many of the sectors yesterday. let's get right to our reporters following the market moves steve leisman has comments on the fed with rates but let's begin with seema mody here >> a big comeback on wall street a 5-1 advance decline ratio. something we haven't seen in quite some time. you're exactly right energy a big part of the story look at exxonmobil lifting the dow nearly 4%. the oil giant is investing in projects at the bottom of the cycle. they hope that will lead to higher return and more money coming back to shareholders in the form of a dividend walk with me you'll see that walmart also providing a lift to the dow and moving on heavy volume a gain of 2% as the annual shareholder meeting kicks off today. one of the retail names seeing big gains today. a high for tiffany, tj max,

movado and the biggest percentage gainers are not the banks. it's names like e-trade, prudential helping the s&p 500 financials sector move higher. energy also a big part of the story. and the russell 2000 with the dollar weaker today. the dollar still high on the month. companies that get more purchasing power when the dollar strengthens. guys, just to put this move into perspective, what we saw yesterday as well as today, the vix is down 14% today. it only hit 18% yesterday on those concerns around italy. nowhere near the level we were back in early february >> just over 15 right now. thank you. let's get over to leisman now with the fed comments. >> just moments ago the federal reserve approving for public

comment putting out a proposal to ease and modify the so-called volcker rule n that is the rule named after joe volcker that limits proprietary trading by banks here is the new federal reserve vice chairman for bank supervision talking about this proposal a few minutes ago >> i view this proposal as an important milestone in comprehensive volcker rule reform but not the completion of this it takes place on a variety of fronts and eni courage all sides to weigh in how it can be approved and complying with requirements >> give you a look at the complicated changes. there will now be three categories created on the firm's trading activity and what happens is it gets harder and harder, there are more restrictions and requirements as the banks get

bigger of trading that will be subject to the harshest requirements proprietary trading. no long assumed for short-term assets in fact, in a lot of places, compliance is more assumed than not. quick headlines from the beige book the fed says the economy is expanding moderately manufacturing in half of the districts shifted to a higher level and rising production led to something we've been talking a lot about. higher freight volume. also we have some transportation worker shortages out there consumer spending was soft banknd home building increased modestly there were concerns about international trade policy and one more thing from the federal reserve, the chance of all those rate hikes going down, you can see here from 88% to 82% now for that june hike, 48% for september. look what's happened to december that contract traded as high as 45%. now there's only seen as a 20% probability of a rate hike

coming for the fourth rate hike this year. i'll be talking to randy tomorrow at 2:10 p.m. exclusively about this volcker rule change as well as what's happening overseas and how it might impact fed policy in the future >> remarkable to see those falls. steve, thank you paul volcker himself has put out a statement to say he thinks the principles will be upheld. >> i think some of these changes will lower the costs for the bigger investment banks not to have to define what each type of trade is it will be interesting to see precisely what mr. quarles has to say with steve. joining us now, michael santoli and kenny polcari.

yesterday morning, we saw a big selloff, of course, at that time was that sort of predictable and talk us through kind of what we've seen since >> it is kind of predictable we woke up monday, we were close. tuesday morning after the european markets had a chance to kind of react to what had happened in italy over the weekend. we got hit with it yesterday morning. so there was this weakness certainly permeating across europe and the weakness in the futures here typically happens, you get that big headline everyone thought the italian thing wouldn't be a big deal after the news came out, it was a bigger deal than they thought. and wasn't to be greece relived. and what happens with that, in the very 21st century market structure environment we have, a lot of it is automated a lot of it is algorithmics.

you have this that builds up that it's negative news. then the orders come through automatically. i'm not saying some of itwasn' warranted, but look what happens. we had that big move yesterday and now overnight everything is okay >> here we're having a nice snapback curious where the o 10-year is too. but that interest rate popped back up. that said, in europe and italy, especially different story >> going into the weekend, i think the markets were attempting to quarantine italy and essentially saying we can sit this aside it doesn't affect us when you had the bit of a stirrings for a potential of contagion, we repriced lower because we filed them down when you net it out today, what's honestly changed? treasury boundary.

and all that means is we have the same economy we thought we did on friday. >> i know where you're going with that. that rate hike had dropped to under 20%. the only thing that's staying the same that doesn't make sense. >> it makes all the sense in the world of if you're a self-interested kind of craven market like u.s. equities which says i want more, i want the refs to let us play. >> right >> and if the refs meaning the fed are going to let the kids play a little more even though the economy looks like it's in decent shape, that's a net positive we have benchmark yields lower risk appetite coming back. but all this being set in the trading range. nothing has been determined. >> the banks have rallied today, but not as much as they fell is it still a buying opportunity for them >> i think it is the banks got overly punished yesterday because of things turned negative so quickly

i think there's more upside room for the banks. >> all right guys, great stuff. thank you. markets looking dramatically different today compared to yesterday as we've just been discussing what exactly do the markets really care about? joining us now jeremy siegel from the wharton school of -- wharton school at the university of pennsylvania. excuse me. good afternoon to you, professor. thanks for joining us. i guess my first question is on a day like yesterday when we saw yields come down and the expectation for fed hikes fall in terms of the year ahead of us, should we have seen markets, in fact, rally opposed to sell off? >> well, first of all let me say i think these probabilities of a future fed hike have gone down too much i'm still in the camp to think there's going to be four hikes this year all together each quarter

and i think the friday jobs market picture is going to be very, very important i mean, we can't keep on producing 200,000 jobs a month because the population does not provide that that lowers the unemployment rate we got the beige book out -- >> exactly professor, on that note -- >> there is tightness in the labor market there is going to be wage increases. so i'm not as, so to speak, bullish on interest rates staying low. i think they went down too much in the last three or four days >> let me ask you about the beige book because it goes to the exact point you're trying to make here. shortages of qualified workers across the country in industries like truck driving, sales, carpentry, electrician, painters, i.t. workers but it says that wage hikes remained modest. i agree with you if you just look at the shortages and the hiring going

on, you'd think the federal reserve keeps raising rates. >> the wage data we get with the payroll report -- the wage we get with the index which includes benefits as well as salary and wage compensation and that definitely has shown an increase people are able to dig at a tctm like truckers. they're able to name their price and terms. there's a shortage over 200,000 of them we heard about airline pilots. my god, when has that happened that is another lar grp getting tighter. it's going to take some time look abefits i do think we're going to see it i think the fed is going to see it and they're going to say, hey, you know, we still have to move at a moderate pace against these

hikes. so we'll wait and see whether this optimism is only going to be three hikes or even less, some people say, whether that can persist or not >> professor, even if there do end up being more fed rate hikes perhaps than people have priced in, what about ecb rate hikes and to what extent are european bond yields influencing the yield curve. >> i used to say europe was too far behind after their crisis in '11. we had our crisis in '09 now, this italy problem may have put them back another year or six months depending how that plays out with draghi tightening i do believe that quantitative easing is going to end at the end of the year. because i don't think italy is going to try to leave the euro and break out.

but it won't be until 2019 before they begin to raise rates. we're ahead of japan we're ahead of europe. we're on the front runner of the recovering so i don't think europe's rates are going to directly affect ours >> all right as always, a pleasure. >> thank you for having me let's send it back out to california now with julia boorstin is standing by. julia, take it way >> i'm joined now by robert lynch, the ceo of pandora. still relatively new to the job but you announced today another subscription service you seem to be doubling down on subscription services even though that's not the majority of your business and it's an increasingly crowded space why start it there >> it's the fastest part of the business frankly we were mising one of

the big opportunities which is these family plans what we just announced a new family plan service that up to six members of your family can are. enit koms with the our sound track feature. it creates a play list for the whole family >> there's so many options here. you have spotify you have apple music and now youtube just announced its big push into music. are you concerned about youtube further drawing away your music base >> music has been a create t place for jul. pandora remaining the largest freedoming in a large way. >> now, your last earnings, surprise the stock went up a lot of that was growth in subscription dollars but it's worth noting that total

listening hours and total users declined what was behind that trend and do you think it'll continue? >> i think really happened last year pandora lost listeners throughout the year last year. i think the reason the stock reacted well in part is because they saw a change in the trajectory of listeners. and actually they tempered in q1 >> one of your big competitors released a new statement saying they're pulling back the way they're promoting some of the songs from r. kelly. are you considering doing something similar? >> we've always had that policy. we don't talk about specific artists. we have had some where we don't produce museum for behavior. >> does that mean you're not including r. kelly songs or you're not mixing it >> so how do you make those

decisions? what defines those it's done on a case-by-case basis. obviously within music, unfortunately there's lots of cases like this. there's no blanket rule to apply. it's why we've had a policy for quite a while and we don't talk about how it's applied but it's applied daily. >> r. kelly, how many other artists? >> i don't know how many >> but you specifically do not include that music from r. kelly in the permanent play list >> correct we also don't have music with hate speech in it. >> fascinating times to be the yuk indust music industry thanks a lot >> does that rule out half the rap music? julia boorstin there let's get back to the markets, talk about with 15 minutes to go, talk about what we're seeing today with our "closing bell" exchange joining us now is chris cordero, steven sarge guilfoyle, and rick

santelli sarge, what do you think today in many ways in the mirror image of what we saw yesterday doesn't take us all the way back and some things -- >> it took me more than all the way back >> well, congratulations to you. >> thank you but some things like those fed funds percentages are still lower. >> they're still subdued and that's fine. i think this is -- it's kind of -- can we use the words glou jous dodd/fra -- glorious. now all of a sudden the big kids can trade again. then you want to go out three, four weeks maybe bigger difvidends. maybe bigger share of buybacks i just got back into lockheed. 650 f-35s you want to write.

i didn't want to brag. i bought jpmorgan and goldman near the lows yesterday. >> if you include a brag, you include something you've followed up on the chart showed triple support at those levels. if you're a trader and you seek opportunity, you had to hang onto his >> some will say they were shorter than they were last week >> i had v a long-term target of 119. >> all right $108.20 at the moment. in terms of the rally today off the back of those issues over the weekend, i guess a lot are thinking it's a one off in italy. it's n >> i think there's a risk that you're going to have a backlash to this leftist populism i think you'll see more a episodes of it i'm a value guy, not a trader.

yesterday was a great opportunity to get some more exposure as the dollar rallies i think we're going to see more opportunities in the weeks to com. there will be more time periods when you get the dollar strengthening to use. >> what specifically did you look into yesterday? >> well, we increased to cross the line but a stock i really like is royal de shell i think oil is strengthening it's a great value coming into the year >> and a good move today energy is the best performing sector rick, to finish up with you, clearly one of the factors that's helped the italian yield today was a successful auction of italian bonds do you think the ecb participated in that could it perhaps have flattered the moves we've seen today a little bit >> well, everybody i talk to tends to think that is the case. and our i know many would say

it's a way to go for that. what we see left as populism, if you put yourself in the shoes of those in italy, they see it as a form of italian patriotism i think we have two skies that are not ending but i think in terms of politics, they're long from done and no matter how this turns out whether it's a new coalition or following for a new government in either case, you're building me ranks -- the ranks. with respect to the market, it's difficult to handy cap it certainly hasn't gone the ray the tho h-- fed fund issues are still have a percentage. everything is different.

fed fund futures is just sort of like a t-bill. by the way, we've issued bals. that tends to keep the -- including fed fund futures and a 10-year today got back six of those basis points which means they had seven of them they didn't get back. yes? >> for everybody saying, look. yet was just the markets it was the machines. look, we're right back where we are. is your point like, no we need to take this serious like this is a real problem. peent shouldn't just say yesterday we were down today we can also move on with our lives. >> i think it's more of an understanding of what's going on under the surface. it's not economic. it's political and it's getting bigger it isn't getting smaller and it's going to continue time after time to intercede in areas

like markets and it's going to cause a disruptive force in november in our country might see a bit of a taste of it >> you know what's going to drive investment here? >> quick last word >> chris just mentioned european equities we saw in germany this morning, a little hot, right? but we've also seen gdps wechb just those to tighten if they want to. you can't if they're not ready i think the investment is here at home. >> we'll leave it on that note chris cordero, we appreciate it. we've opened higher and rallied throughout most of the session. just poising off the highs in the last hour.

the high today for the dow is 340 but nice more than 1%. mike santoli has a big mover >> yeah. we've had strong retail numbers. this is one of the strongest moves. meacl tell you about it wh w ene co bk. let's begin. yes or no? do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. looks like we have a couple seconds left. let's do some card twirling twirling cards e*trade. the original place to invest online. i'm not really a, i thought wall street guy.ns. what's the hesitation?

eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman? hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade

welcome back to "closing bell." i'm eamon javers at the white house where sarah huckabee sanders was just critical here of disney ceo bob iger in the wake of the president's tweet earlier today that he complained that bob iger hadn't called to apologize to the president for some remarks that have been made on disney programs the way he called to apologize to valerie jarrett over remarks made by roseanne here's what sarah huckabee sanders said in the briefing room within the past hour. a litany of complaints of things that aired on disney programs over the past several years. >> the president's pointing to the hypocrisy in the media saying the most horrible things about this president and nobody

addresses it where was bob iger's apology to the white house staff for hi calling the present and anyo associated with him a white supremacist. for those calling christianity a mental illness what about the profane rant on "the view" by kathy griffin. and what about hiring keith olbermann after his numerous tweets attacking the president as a nazi and even expanding olbermann's role after that attack against the president's family this is a double standard that the president is speaking about. no one is defending her comments they're inappropriate, but that's the point he was making >> now, kelly, i asked sarah sanders just after that if anybody at the white house had been in touch with bob iger or anyone at abc over the canceling of "roseanne." she said she wasn't aware of any such conversations.

>> a lot of moving pieces this afternoon. eamon, thank you we'll send it over to mike santoli who is posting up dick's sporting goods now. >> company had better than feared results the stock up more than 25% all day. online sales in particular were a bright spot growing more than 20% in the latest quarter. obviously not so big a loss from the cessation of some assault rifle sales. of course that was big news in this quarter it's also a cheap stock and a heavily shorted stock. how bad was it down? it's still down 9% on a 12 month basis even after being up 26% today. going to hand it off to wilfred and seema for the close. which is in just a couple minutes. >> it is, indeed, mike thanks for that. 90 seconds left of trade we're up 321 points on the dow the high was 340 a nice bounce into the close getting to the highs of the day. we're up about 1.3% for the s&p

and the dow just less than 1% for the nasdaq going to flip to the sector performance today. resounding performance for energy as oil prices rise. but some of the sectors, they're near the top why? because yields have moved up a little bit today the 10-year move over two days you can see it move lower. you can see it move higher today. the opposite happened for the italian 2-year it spiked yesterday. it's come down a little bit today. here is the bank index the rally was bigger yesterday than today that's much more pronounced when you look at the italian credit it's up only about a percent today. that highlights the question mark as to whether we're past the worst of it. maybe we shrugged off this here in the u.s energy the best performer today. >> energy. tomorrow we get inflation followed by the report on

friday a lot of people saying that. >> there we go out of time, my apologies for that we are up on the dow ringing the bell here at the big board is tanger outlet centers at the nasdaq it's pacer etfs. kelly's got the second half. thank you, wilf. welcome to "the closing bell," everybody. i'm kelly evans. big rebound across wall street today. the dow ending higher by more than 300 points. pretty much makes up for that decline we saw yesterday a big decline on the bell. 24,668 and 2,724 are your closing levels respectively. the nasdaq up to 7,462 it held up relatively well yesterday. and the russell today vaulted up

1.5% to close at 1,648 that is a new closing high for the russell 2000 we've got some big names reporting earnings as well after hours. josh lipton will bring us numbers from box joining me now michael santoli and bill sneed welcome, everybody topping the dow today was exxonmobil while energy was broadly an outperformer. cisco did trail. a big winner on the s&p 500. michael kors after its earnings down more than 11% i love the way you pit it at the top of last hour when you said basically the u.s. stock market threw a hissy fit. you could say it's, you know, legitimate based on what's happening in europe or not today we've got everything back except the odds of a fourth fed rate hike. >> that's right. and treasuryyields remain lowe

than they were a couple days ago. so you've had a little bit of loosening if you want to think of it that way of financial conditions at a time when really not much has changed for the u.s. economy all that being said, bank stocks did not come back from yesterday's losses because the yields are where they are a little bit lower sop i don't think it's a matter of we wiped away yesterday, bu i think you get a little more selective of where there was pa, where you rescued some stocks i want to draw the broader context. it has been bouncing around this level, the s&p for the better part of four months. it wouldn't surprise me if much of the summer, the start of the summer is exactly this jumpy within a range for awhile. >> i think this is sort of a victory. we took off to the races for a value guy like you maybe it drives you crazy it seems like everything is going up in a parabolic way. now we're in a range, but is that a better outcome? a more sustainable one >> i agree with mike that we've

been very range bound. but i'd like to add a thought in, you know, the fed is tightening credit. the fed is allowing the bonds they bought back to roll off right? they're effectively tightening credit in two ways then the success of the largest capitalization fang stocks is another chewer up of capital then a third thing that chews up capital is money flowing into passive indexes. you've got a whole bunch of different what i call capital pigs soaking up money in the system it just so happens there's a lot of small oil companies in the s&p, you know, small cap index when oil rebounds, of course the small cap index comes up there's just a lot of beaten up little oil companies floating around in there that are having their day in the sun >> movado also, yep. go ahead >> our position is we're in a bare market rally in oil that might take it to $80 a barrel in oil.

it's a bear market rally thsinc the market top number one number two, until amazon and netflix and these guys stop sucking up all the capital at the margin, there's not going to be the ability to make money in the michael korses of the world or anybody else in the way of these guys >> i'm talking about capital pigs it's tech -- that's the tech -- anyway let me bring in charlie. in particular we're talking about what's happened in rates the 10-year yield, remember we were over 3%, all this excitement about it. it was 4% the next place we were going. mortgage rates were rising and housing activity was dropping and all that how significant is this retrenchment >> i don't think it's very significant at all it definitely changed the tone there for about two days obviously if we had a major

problem in europe, it was going to change the tone but i think that wasn't going to happen the italian population is solidly behind staying in the euro this is a political small event and they're not coming out of the euro interest rates are going to start heading back up. the inflation numbers are now over two the fed is going to keep tightening, keep moving rates up we got an awful lot of things adding to inflation and that's going to send rates up that has different implications for certain kinds of stocks. >> what about the -- i was about to say repeal of the volcker rule but in fact they're just tweaking it. they're relaxing it. they described it as needlessly cumbersome it's all going to be volcker 2.0. >> first of all, there had been some regulation that helped smaller banks before now they're clearing up the volcker rule it never made any intellectual sense. when a bank buys a loan or a position from someone else, they own it

they are proprietarily owning that loan. it doesn't matter if it was sold to them because a customer wanted to sell it or because they want to buy it. they're long it. so this concept of multi-trillion-dollar asset banks can't be long securities was just insane to begin with and they're finally clearing that up. >> all right we'll come back to this. we do have some earnings from box. josh lipton has details. looks like they're moving, josh. >> kelly, a loss of 7 cents. the street was looking for a loss of 8 cents. revenue up 20% to $141 million analysts projected $140 million. as for the guide, they're looking for a loss between 5 and 6 cents. analysts had been looking for a loss of 7 cents. revenue of $146 million to $147 million. for the year box is saying to look for $603 million to $608 million.

that's basically in line what the street was looking for i did have a chance to check in briefly with the ceo aaron levy about the report he is sticking with his long-term financial target calling for the run rate by calendar 2020. i also wanted to drill into the competitive landscape with aaron levy drop box reported earlier this month they crew revenue nearly 30%. they added about 500,000 paying users. aaron levy telling me this is a $40 billion market in terms of how much money is spent on content management storage, collaboration tools, and we collectively both dropbox and box are a small percentage of that entire marketoday so we think there's a lot of room for both of us to grow. finally, kelly, you'llecall back in april chamat said it was his favorite to play the trend

driving in ai. there's only a few ways to do that, he said. one of them is box we're going to take all the innovation and technology of all those big tech companies and enable that for our customers. back to you. >> all right thank you. >> we're also going to have more from aaron levie tomorrow on "closing bell. stock down as much as 7% anything you'd add >> it was up 10% from that and also really since dropbox became public in late march, both stocks have been strong so this looks like a giveback of some of that enthusiasm. >> kelly >> yeah. go ahead >> i might add, there's 7 billion people in the world and they breathe oxygen. so maybe if they delivered oxygen to people they shoulded have a high market cap >> wait. what do you mean >> everybody wants to tell you what their potential market is but yet almost every child born

in the united states is a potential disney customer and their stock trades at 13 or 14 times earnings >> now, there's an idea for bob iger he could say our potential audience >> exactly a company that loses a little less money but might have a billion dollars in sales some day regardless of whether or not they're making profit from that. does anybody realize how ludicrous this all is? >> all right. >> convertible bonds that pay no interest >> i saw that. that was a great -- journal has a lot on that from the weekend tells you a lot about the environment. yeah wait until we get to the electric bike start-up investors are listening a little right now. shares down 6% and we will follow box we want to talk a little bit about what's happening in europe as well. after stocks erased most of yesterday's losses coming after concerns about rising european yields let's bring in steve widing.

steve, sit all over? that seems like the main question for everybody was this a one-day freakout for the u.s. market anyway or is that just the beginning of more to come >> well, look. italy will be back for the eurozone markets italy will bback for global markets. but the f response thawe saw today shouldn't be too surprising you know, the talk of having a de facto referendum on the eurozone if they have another election in italy, you know, is very, very far removed from having a real referendum on the euro within italy. and so there was a very powerful reaction yes, we saw the worst blowup in short-term italian debt that we've seen since 2011. obviously a read through when conditions are that unruly, when they're that dysfunctional

we had an overreaction yesterday. >> mike, are you are looking at this >> when you have a flare up in the italian bond market, it's the global market's way of doing a survey it says who's in trouble, who's a little bit overextended, who's going to be forced to sell if things move a little farther what we saw was markets removed from that direct area of stress, they bent a little bit but they didn't break again, that's the way i see the process playing out. not possible for me to handicap exactly the electoral outcome goes but relative to this potential risk. >> are you seizing any opportunities as a result of this or are you steering clear >> i'm steering clear of european banks the big headline is a number of these european banks have a big percentage of their assets in these credits that have 1% interest rates italy had lower interest rates on its government debt than the u.s. did that's just crazy. and a lot of the banks are the

ones that hold those italian bonds. fundamentally we still think there's a lot of weakness in certain european banks we would avoid. >> steve, what are you recommending to clients? >> look. one thing that should be clear here we've had one real eurozone cris, 2011 to 2013 we have this other feared crisis post brexit if you look at other markets aside from those two particular zones, the returns in equities in 12 months beat those regions by 19 percentage points. so again, there's a very, very high threshold, you know, to have a regional crisis become a global one so you have these short-term spikes in correlation. you really if you want to take the lower risk approach, it's look away from the trouble zone. >> guys, thank you appreciate it very much. talking about europe and markets today. there's a lot more still to come here on "the closing bell."

>> see why hedge fund and private equity execs are so desperate to find a great private investigator these days. it's sex and big money straight ahead. i'm aditi roy at amazon's shareholder conference where a group of protesters have gathered plus richard branson live after a successful launch. he says he's closer to true commercialized space flight. he's with us coming up this is "the closing bell" with kelly evans live from the new york stock exchange.

welcome back dow closed more than 300 points higher rebounding from yesterday's big drop and the russell 2000 caps closed at an all-time high. jeff bezos making news and facing protests at the company's annual shareholder meeting today. aditi roy in seattle with the highlights >> that's right. amazon ceo jeff bezos spoke to shareholders today fielding questions on topics ranging widely this as many were outside protesting amazon. one shareholder asking bezos

about some of the challenges amazon has faced in the last year or so from the eu backlash to president trump's critiques of amazon. are they the price of a company that's paying for getting this big? bezos responding inside amazon we talk about this i say we are a large corporation. we deserve to be inspected don't take it personally he added, we have to conduct ourselves in such a way so when we are scrutinized, we pass with flying colors. another shareholder asking bezos about the company's growth plans and areas that they might move the needle in the future to that bezos responded they're hopeful they'll find their fourth pillar that will work alongside prime, marketplace, and aws core businesses. he says that amazon india, prime video, and alexa could be needle movers in the future he said we have a lot of positive surprises in the future that could potentially move the needle in the future

as he spoke demonstrators outside chanted and flying a plane with a banner. pilots contracted by amazon from atlas air were also outside demonstrating here ey say the company needs to pay them higher wages in order to recruit and retain more pilots back to you, kelly >> yeah. i bet they do. aditi, thank you joining us to talk more about amazon a kevin landis. kevin, what stood out to you about today? >> well, i guess it's the constant theme that when you're successful you get more scrutiny and that whatever the issue of the day is, it gets shifted over to you whether it's me too or data privacy or anything else like that, amazon should expect scrutiny in those areas. >> does it make them less attractive as an investment? >> no. ironically, it's your success that makes you a target, a

magnet for this kind of scrutiny and success is why you're doing well and get investment. >> kevin, do you think down the road and i'm sure amazon would be thinking about this along with everybody else at some point at some level. down the road we're going to be talking about ways to split the company apart, to rationalize it in some way? >> you know, i don't think that's the biggest threat here sure, if you're successful enough, people want to come and smash you with a hammer. but really, i think it's more along the lines of the public perception of this company, does it give you the creeps and, you know, we talked about this with facebook you know, people have a listening device that they've paid money to put in their home. that should give you the creeps. i'm surprised it doesn't give more people the creeps but that kind a of a backlash, if you kill that product you kill that whole line that would be a big thing. >> i wasn't talking about forcibly splitting it apart.

i think more on paper it seems to make a little bit of sense at some state of maturity, perhaps, for the company to be in different pieces whether aws and the retail side. >> sure. and, you know, i'm all for focus. you could have made the argument years ago that xbox should be a separate company and have its own focus and not detract from microsoft's other efforts. they did just fine keeping it together so i don't know. usually i hear bankers making those arguments. >> you don't think microsoft has suffered from having spun off expedia all those years ago? >> there's memory lane i was going to ask for mike's reaction on what he thought of as a banker, mike. >> well, i mean, we all have to go through the exercise. >> no abuse was intended i'm sorry about that actually, you know, the real challenge to any of these successful companies, by the way. it's just being big. it's just corporate gigantism.

>> we'll see if amazon and the others can navigate through this thanks for joining us. >> thank you >> kevin landis on amazon there. giant leap in the space race after successful launch virgin galactic richard branson with us live when will the first tourist go where none have gone before? we'll ask him. in the age of me too, firms are taking extra steps to weed out sexual harassment in the ranks. those details coming up next imagine traveling hassle-free with your golf clubs.

now you can, with shipsticks.com! no more lugging your clubs through the airport or risk having your clubs lost or damaged by the airlines. sending your own clubs ahead with shipsticks.com makes it fast & easy to get to your golf destination. with just a few clicks or a phone call we'll pick up and deliver your clubs on-time, guaranteed, for as low as $39.99. shipsticks.com saves you time and money. make it simple. make sticks.

allegations of predatory behavior forced out steve wynn, sent that stock on a roller coaster in the me too era. many corporations are turning to private investigators. leslie picker has that story >> one ounce of prechvention is worth a pound of cure here >> he says calls about sexual misconduct investigations are up 35% over the last six months >> i've never seen a societal phenomenon that has had the impact on our business as the me too movement. >> he says corporations are looking for help ahead of acquisitions also looking into the background

of board members and some clients are seeking possible predatory behavior in competitors. a move that one of his clients calls weaponizing feminism nardelo also gets work through people like ed little who sought the help clearing the name of a client >> the me too movement is a valid movement, but there's been overreaction, we believe and so in representing somebody who's been accused, it's important to find out whether or not there's any credibility to the allegations. >> after discovering sexual misconduct despite the recent wave of allegations, he says we may have only seen the tip of the iceberg. i'm les blie picker >> pretty amazing stuff. do we read this as -- i guess it goes both ways it could be nefarious if a company is trying to find, you know, something. or it can be a little bit more

innocent if they're trying to get out corporate culture. >> they want it as a risk management process i think hedge funds and private equity firms they never stop at anything in terms of searching for information that wasn't fully public i think what's changed here is somebody being accused of sexual harassment or misconduct is now a material event right? going to basically end your career and change the leadership of a company that to me is the big change that this particular kind of behavior has been all vat levata level it wasn't at before. >> and maybe people who have been hesitant to get involved in the past, thought what's the point now realize this is going to go further. steel stocks soared today. up next, we'll talk about whether they're a good buy right now. plus virgin galactic space tourism passing a major test richard branson tells us how

iwi bberefo passengers head to space my portd pretty well last year. that's great. but the market was up nearly twice as much. that's a tough pill to swallow. exactly. so i started trading. but with everything out there, how do you know what to buy? well, i think my friend victor has just the thing for you. check this out, td ameritrade makes it easier to find the investments that might be right for you. like our etf comparison tool it lets you see how etfs measure up to one another. analyst ratings and past access to coaches and a fulls education curriculum to help you improve your skills. that is cool. and if you still have any questions you can always chat with us on facebook or call our experienced service team, 24/7. yep. just because you're doing it yourself doesn't mean you're on your own. that's great. you're still up. alright. you're still up. if i knew you were gonna run the table i wouldn't have invited you over. call (866) 296-7451. act now to take advantage of commission-free trades for 90 days, plus get up to an $800 cash bonus when you open and fund a new account. ♪

with tripadvisor, finding your perfect hotel at the lowest price... is as easy as dates, deals, done! simply enter your destination and dates... and see all the hotels for your stay! tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites... to show you the lowest prices... so you can get the best deal on the right hotel for you. dates, deals, done! tripadvisor. visit tripadvisor.com

welcome back here's a look at how we finished the day on wall street the dow up more than 300 points.

nearly erasing yesterday's 400 point drop the nasdaq up 65 the russell 2000 small caps up 24 that's a new all-time closing high of about 1,648. time for a cnbc news update. let's get to sue herera. >> hello this is what's happening at this hour roseanne barr is partly blaming ambien for the racist tweet that leto her show's ncellation bue maker of the insomnia drug pushed back saying racism is not a known side effect of any santa fe medication. virginia senator mark warner speaking out on facebook at the tech and media code conference in california. >> they were slow to the game. i think last week when they came out with some transparency tools, pretty darn good. but transparency around paid political advertising, i just don't think it's going to be enough that is not really where the rubber hits the road

>> former president george h.w. bush appears to be talkative and in good spirits after being admitted to a maine hospital on sunday a spokesperson says he's doing better but will need several more days of treatment he was taken to the hospital with low blood pressure and fatigue. that's the news update at this hour back to you. >> thank you see you tomorrow sue herera there steel stocks here are rallying and here to talk more about that are "fast money" traders pete najarian and tim seymour. tim, are those jeans is it friday >> he's got a casual day going >> we're trying to show the versatility of the team here and how markets can be all over the place. they're not acid wash. just older jeans but thank you for calling me out on that. can we please talk steel >> i like you're saying they've gotten distressed over the

kweer years. >> yes there's a metaphor here for steel, i'm sure. >> so how distressed or not are they looking with these tariffs coming down the pike >> the irony is they sohower a fresh pair of dungarees coming down the west. this is actually very, very cash generative to steel. they're probably going to have 1.1 in ebida which is a major, major discount for this company >> pete, you like the steel stocks here? >> i like some of the steel stocks here. i agree with tim on what all the fundamental side of this whole thing. i think the interesting thing is on the options side. people had gone away from materials for awhile then they came right back in as a matter of fact, today ak steel, some active paper coming into there looking for upside. they're not going out months though

everything we're seeing is very short-term people are truly trading these markets as we see all the political stuff start to unfold before our eyes. >> all right i just like we get to see what's really going on here outfitwise with you every day >> thank you for that. >> if we get into the summer and see swim trunks and flip-flops >> i don't want to call pete out because he's well-dressed out. >> oftentimes, not afraid. not afraid at all. >> that day we catch him with his pants down, so to speak. >> we'll move on quickly pete najarian and tim seymour, thank you. there's a whole lot more coming up on "fast money." well, not a whole lot more anyway, at 5:00 p.m. eastern time we have some earnings from pvh out. let's get to eric chemi with those results. >> better than the $2.25 estimate revenue also beat $2.31 billion versus $2.28 billion but the company, their guidance

there a little bit weak. that's why you're seeing it down a percent after-hours. then we also have guess, another retailer with earnings they're up after-hours with some strong revenue guidance that was about double what analysts were expecting. 14% to 15% versus 8% estimates they were in line on their quarterly estimates. that's pvh and guess back to you. >> all right, eric thank you. guess now kind of churning lower by about 2%. mike, the big retail movers today were dick's. you had movado helping the ssell. tiffany, tj maxx >> and downside, michael kors. i think in general the consumer is in pretty good shape. when you look at pvh, one of the stronger stocks in the pure branded clothing that have been better than the retailers. that's why you're giving back a little bit >> by the way, don't miss jim cramer's interview he's going to speak with manny

chirico tonight. the space race is about to take off virgin galactic is getting closer to taking people to space with the launch of its latest spacecraft founder richard branson joins us with an exclusive interview right after this ank you clients? well jd power did just rank them highest in investor satisfaction with full service brokerage firms...again. and online equity trades are only $4.95... i mean you can't have low cost and be full service. it's impossible. it's like having your cake and eating it too. ask your broker if they offer award-winning full service and low costs. how am i going to explain this? if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab. schwab, a modern approach to wealth management. - anncr: as you grow older, -your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling

brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate! you wanna play again? - anncr: prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

welcome back the space race continues last night virgin galactics spacecraft, there it is, completed its second successful test flight. joining us in an exclusive

interview to talk about what this means for the future of space travel is virgin galactic founder richard branson. welcome, sir literally. >> nice to see you >> how significant a milestone is this for you? what does it mean to your company and to space travel? >> it was a magnificent day. the spaceship traveled from 2,000 miles an hour in just a few seconds. it went 118,000 feet about 18,000 feet higher than we'd expected. and it was an incredibly successful second flight in three week's time, we'll have another flight and then the following flight will either be into space or to the edge of space. so we're just about there.

everybody is very, very excited about where we are at the moment >> which one are you going or ton? i know you said you want to be on the one that -- how close are we from richard branson taking flight >> our brave astronauts are going to put the spaceship through its pace they will be taking it to space a few times over the next few months then we move the whole operation from the mojave desert to new mexico where we have a space port and i will be doing the first flight there and then after my flight we have nearly 800 astronauts who have signed up wanting to go up and so next year we'll start taking e peope ining people to . >> wow >> in our space factory in

mojave, we've got two new spaceships being built so next year we'll have a fleet of spaceships operating out of the space port in new mexico >> how do you mainly think about this effort in terms of purely as a business, obviously many other entrepreneurs are looking at different aspects of private space travel some of them making it seem it's a priority for humanity long-term. and of course on your side, you're looking to take people relatively soon on these manageable flights sop how do you think about this as an overall objective fo yourself >> oh, we have -- as always in life, many objectives. first of all there will be 50% of the people watching this program who would love to become astronauts and we want to make it possible for them to become astronauts and to have the experience of a

lifetime and to go to space and marvel back at this beautiful planet we have you know, tick a very big box. but the resources and then money we make from that we will be putting to things like point to point travel with the only spaceship company that has a spaceship shaped like a supersonic plane that will be expanded and one day do pouint to point travel. we've got another spaceship company called virgin orbit which will be putting satellites into orbit later this year you know, dropping these rockets down from a 747. so we're building a spaceship company that will, you know, help people back here on earth through connectivity -- there are 5 billion people not connected to the internet.

and ols jualso just giving peop experience of a lifetime we believe -- it costs a lot of money to do this, but we believe there's a big market for it. >> so you're not, richard, one of these types who says we got to get out of here because this planet is going to heck and our time as humans is limited. yours is i'm out of here and you can come with me >> my attitude is that this planet is the best we got. we've got to fight to keep it this way i've just spent the whole day with bill gates and others at the breakthrough energy coalition trying to work out breakthrough new energy solutions to try to protect this beautiful planet and i think through space we can protect this planet. we can open the eyes of, you know, thousands of people who want to go to space and look back at this planet and come back and do something about it

so yeah. i don't think we have to colonize this planet we just have to save it. >> that's a hopeful message i'm hearing from you you mention that this costs a lot of money how much money and is it coming from you? i don't want to -- well, maybe i'll kind of ask you but $5 billion, that's what they've pegged your net worth at, richard. i don't know if you're over or under on that if you want to comment. but how much of that is going to go into this is this just an open ended initiative for you >> look, i'll spend what it takes to fulfill this dream. and, you know, i've spent a billion dollars so far we've got wonderful partners from the middle east involved as well and maybe one day we'll involve the public in it as well

but at the moment, i'm the principal funder of this because i believe it i believe in it. and i believe that -- yeah there's an awful lot of people out there who believe in this project as well. so, you know, i think almost as many spaceships as we build, there will be demand for so we've got 800 wonderful engineers building spaceships at the moment >> yeah. those guys aren't cheap. would you do a public offering to raise money look what is happening with tesla. people like to support elon musk and his endeavors and are fully aware of the risks and that's just cars. and you're doing shuttles. so what about offering shares to the public >> it's always possible one day that we'll involve the public in it i think we have no immediate plans to do so

but i think we would like to before we involved anybody else, we'd like to prove that, you know, prove that we can take people safely into pace and have a reliable business. that at some stage in the future, may be doing an interview with you along those lines. but first things first >> last thing, much more mundane, but how do you feel there's no more virgin air in the u.s. a lot of people, they're sad you know, alaska -- it's alaska air now. how does that feel for you >> i think it's very sad i think, you know, i did not want to sell virgin america. i had to be a minority shareholder because i was british. i think alaska airlines paid a very big price for it and i think they've destroyed what was best about it. and that was, you know, the

wonderful people, the brand. you know, they ripped out the heart and soul of it but, you know, all i can say on that is watch this space you know, you never know what may be happening in that area. >> well, you're still british. are you going to become an american and launch a -- how about that come to the u.s., then you can launch an american airline if those are the rules. >> there well, i'm married so i can't marry an american girl and become an american anyway, we'll get some magic going and try to work out a way around these things. >> well, we'll be watching that space out of -- go ahead >> no, it's okay it's -- it was a great 12 years. the team at virgin america did a

spectacular job. it was voted best airline every single year for those 12 years hopefully, you know, just by being there and competing has helped improve some of the bigger airlines. but i still think there's need and room for a virgin america type of project again in america. but we'll see how we go. >> we'll watch that space. you guys, you were the first with the safety videos then everyone copied you on that much more enjoyable. anyway, sir richard branson, thank you so much. appreciate your time >> nice to talk to you and maybe see you in space one day cheers >> not me. no, no i'll wave from down here i think you're crazy, but i appreciate it. nevertheless >> all right nice to talk to you. >> richard branson there the ceo of airbnb is making comments out west. let's bring julia boorstin in. >> regulation is a big concern for ceos and investors here.

brian chesky saying his battle with the nation's largest city and its massive hotel industry is at a stand still but that he won't give up. >> san francisco and new york is two of our four worst cities in the world. new york has been a standstill since 2010 2010 i said this is going to be a one-year challenge and in 2011 i said this was probably going to take a few years. in 2018, it's going to take more than a few more years. it doesn't seem like the end is in sight with that challenge >> chesky also saying the company will be ready to go public next year but that doesn't mean that an ipo will necessarily happen that soon also making headlines here at code, at&t ceo randall stephenson he said they're not considering option "b" if the deal is blocked as it's so necessary to have time warner to navigate this new landscape >> you're going to need media, premium media.

but you also -- one of the key variables of this is a direct relationship with the customer a lot of media companies do not have that direct relationship with the customer. there are some who do and they're doing quite well >> he was talking about netflix there. stephenson points to netflix's rise one reason it's so necessary to have at&t do that vefrt kal mer -- vertical merger to compete >> thank you, julia boorstin roseanne barr blaming her racist tweets on ambien. the maker has fired back ahead on "fast money t,"he cio of bessemer trust.

testing in patients yet. they say this clinical hold has been placed pending the resolution of certain questions provided by the fda. they're down about 20% on that this is a program partnered with vertex which is down a little bit in the after-hours about 2.3% there the companies say, though, they have a program going on in europe they plan to start testing on that which hasn't changed in the second half of 2018. but quite a leg lower for crisper there which was a $3.5 billion market cap there back to you. >> wow leading edge of technology there, meg thank you. time now for the takeaway. microsoft is now a bigger part of the company than alphabet.750

less about alba felt's slide. >> it's really not a big increase it just shows you how inflated the valuation. in terms of revenue, in terms of earnings, they're also very similar alphabet and microsoft right now. they trade at the exact same ratio of their share price, their market share so basically, they're similar. businesses of similar heft but that does say more about microsoft, as well as the maturation of alphabet, no longer trading at a super premium. >> still both of them mega sized companies. next, drugmaker sanofi couldn't help weighing in. on ambien tweeting in response racism is not a known side effect of any sanofi medication.

they're trying to be a little cheeky i don't really like this ambien is a serious drug with serious side effects we know many, many people who have misused it. feels like to me their tweet was a little flirngs it might have been a little cavalier or dismissive but you can imagine the day after or the hours after roseanne barr starts to scapegoat their drug, they're getting calls. could this possibly be. >> i don't think she is really blaming them even she said don't try to excuse what i did. i take ownership for it. >> companies have an instinct right now of trying to figure out how to turn a loss into a social win that's what they try to do. >> no, it's a fair point finally, which startup is to be worth a billion dollars it's an electric scooter company called bird. its valuation has exploded, especially after uber played a nice premium for electric bike company jump are these new modes of transportation here to stay? >> i don't know if here to stay. i can't judge in a billion dollars a lot or a little.

i wonder what the assumptions are. how many cities are they going to be in how pervasive is this going to be i'd love to add up the value in terms of the alternative transportation mobility solution. >> sure. >> to see what it says they think about car ownership. >> absolutely. and by the way, to chesky's point about fighting with regulation, electric scooters, that's going to be an insane fight too. >> apparently already. >> stocks did rally big-time today. we'll recap the adhelines in after hours movers after this quick break. we're back in two. as a control enthusiast,

i'm all-business when i travel... even when i travel... for leisure. so i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade in the aisle - without starting any conversations- -or paying any upcharges. what can i say? control suits me. go national. go like a pro.

welcome back some breaking news on warren buffett. becky quick is on the news line. becky, what's happening? >> guy, there has been reports that warren buffett has been interested in taking a stake in uber, that there had been a $3 billion offer to take a stake in uber, but the talks fell apart contacted buffett's office to ask about that i did get a response where he said these words about this entire story and about these reports. buffett says i'm great admire of

some of the reported details are not coect, but it is true that berkshire hadiscussions with uber i didn't get any more detail on. this i didn't get a chance to talk with buffett about any of these things but again, confirming reports out there that there had been talks with uber, but pointing out some of the details in those reports are not accurate don't know which ones those are. so i'll leave that out there this is reminiscent of some of the deals that buffett had taken during the financial crisis when he took stakes in general electric and goldman sachs, other companies that had been distressed and had been in trouble and made an offer to kind of offer the good seal, the good housekeeping seal of approval from berkshire hathaway and warren buffett i'm assuming that's what happened here, but i don't have more details than that. >> the only thing that stood out to me was his mention of dara, suggesting this is relatively recent even $3 million wouldn't get you much. >> it's hard to say what the valuations had been. i do know there had been stories out there what the high watermark were some of these

things i don't know what that would have gotten him. but you're right it must have been recently if these were talks. >> becky, thank you so much. becky quick there touching base with warren buffett who did confirm he looked at that investment in uber that does it for us mike, thank you, as always and for "closing bell. "fast money" begins right now. "fast money" starts right now. live from the nasdaq market site ovlooking new york city's times square, i'm melissa lee. tim seymour, steve grasso, and guy adami. tonight on "fast," one hot foreign market is up 57% in the past month, but one fund manager who oversees $70 billion in assets says it's a, quote, hot mess she'll be here to tell us why. plus, the ceo of ripple sitting down with us on power lunch today. there is one thing he said that's got the crypto universe in a frenzy. today stocks soaring back after yesterday's losses the dow up more than 300 points as the fears of a full-on euro crisis subside